A new book in the pipeline

Sometimes what you need to enable you to recover from something nasty is a challenge. One of the nicest things that could happen to me was that Martha Ess wrote to ask if I'd test tat this butterfly for her.

Now I LOVE Martha's work and test tatting for her is a real pleasure. She's working on a new book which will be tatting on buttons. I love using buttons in tatting too so this was a delight to get my 'teeth' into.  Sally is quite jealous when I've shown her what I'm up to as she loves buttons too.

One thing which she mentions in the introduction is a method of joining to the button that I'd not thought of so this is on my 'to do' list to add to the techniques pages. It really makes for a much sturdier join and I wish I'd thought of it before her!!!!!

I'm BACK.

Well, sort of!!! Just not used to being ill as it must be 20 or more years since it happened. Still, that's behind me now and it's a case of 'upwards and onwards'!!!

This is another rendition of this motif that I had done before I stopped blogging last week. 

If you remember - I'm currently working on a re-write of this pattern. You can see the motif (naked) here, but today I can show you the same little stinker with 'clothes' (aka beads) on. Of course there could be many variations on the use of colours but this is what I've done so far. Keep watching for further progress - or not!!!!

A new member of

The Exclusive Tatting Club

A couple of days ago Lou sent in her dear little mouse. Now it's taken me a few days to get to put it up in the Exclusive Tatting Club but it's there now. 

As a teaser I'm going to show you the picture but 'make' you go to the page to see what Lou says.

Blogging might be a bit intermittent for a while as I've not done a lot the last week except cough and not sleep. Now (hopefully) under control with antibiotics for a chest infection.  

It's OUT again

That's my sewing machine!!!! 

It's been in hibernation for a while as I've not known what I want to sew. Time is creeping on and I've got a table in an exhibition/sale in October so thought I'd better make some things to sell - that's if we get many customers, of course!!! 

The exhibition is going to be in the library in town which is a few steps away from Shakespeare's Birthplace so just MAY attract a few people if they know it's happening. 

This is the first of a set of four coasters that I'm making which I really love so has provided a good start to this foray with the machine.

Obviously I will be taking some 'tatty bits' to sell too but need some sewing things as well.  I've got a few tote bags (Japanese prints) which will go with me too.

CTB again!

Well as you know I'm going to consign this pattern to the bin shortly (CTB) so I thought I'd better get on with the re-write!!!!

I'd like you (if you've got time) to take a look and see what you think. To me it seems a lot clearer but then I'm living right on top of it so it's not possible to take an unbiased look.

I'm next going to try putting a few together to see what that brings out in the design and may try one or two with SLT's in to vary where the colours appear.

As promised yesterday!

I took the photos as promised yesterday and here they are.

The one on the left is the first square I did. That's using what the Tunisian crochet sites call 'simple stitch'. It gives a firm, dense fabric.

Having tried that one the yellow is a variation where I've pulled the thread through (as with the simple stitch) but then done a double crochet (English dc) and then carried on. 

This grew a lot faster but gave a looser fabric which is fine.

A new 'toy'

At one of the crafty groups I go to there was a lady called Jenny who had just bought herself a Tunisian crochet hook. 

I've often been tempted to try this type of crochet but could never quite see the point of it. Having seen the type of fabric it produces I was sorely tempted to have a go. So, off I went to try and find a hook.

No shops locally had them (not even the charity shops) so in the end I bought one off Ebay. Thus the adventure began. 

I decided that I needed a project to make BC3 more interested so have decided that a cushion cover would be a good idea. If that goes well then instead it might grow to something bigger - like the tatting I showed you yesterday!!! 

Actually this is my third square - I'll take photos in a minute of the other two to show you. I'm not sure what this stitch is called but I like the fact that the fabric is growing a lot faster than it does with the original 'simple stitch'.

In case you think I'd given up!!!

Do you remember my 'big' project with the diamond motifs? Well if not then here's a reminder of where I'd got to when I last blogged about it.

As you can tell from that post I was dithering about whether to continue or not but in the end the temptation of the threads and the possibilities got the better of me and off I went on another round. It's taken me roughly three months to get this next round on as I only work on it when I'm 'out and about' and not having to concentrate on what I'm doing. As you can imagine - I know this pattern off by heart by now!!!!

For this round I decided to use the same colours all the way round. I've used a variegated and plain together for both the inner part and the outer and they're all different. 

Again I'm now wondering if this is the end of the 'tale' or whether I may 'fill in' the outside to make it straighter or not. Time to sit and think and try out ideas for a while. 

Meantime (as you know) I am always up to other things too so that BC3 doesn't get bored!!!!

Simply STUNNING

Now I really, really, REALLY wish this was my idea and my execution but it's not. It may happen sometime in the future though that I'll get round to trying it myself. 

Thanks to Patti Duff and Heidi I do have the pattern and just need to settle BC3 down to give it a whirl. 

OK, I know I've worked the pattern before but not like Heidi has with two colours. This is her work which she's kindly allowed me to blog.

Now the pattern is on page 22 of Dora Young's 'All New Knotless Tatting'. So, where do you get the book from? Well from Heidi or any of your other tatting suppliers including Tatting and Design here in the UK. 

Having recently completed this in 'just one colour' I'm going to HAVE to do the same again in two!!!

Finally!!!!

I bet you're sick of hearing and seeing me fiddle around with this by now and have been put off actually making it!!! I can still see so many different colours in my stash that I could make this with but really need to get on with other things. 

Anyway, here's the link with thanks once more to Sue (Pigmini) for the name. I always struggle for names!!!

CTB

Now I bet you're wondering what that means!!! Well in this household it means 'consign to bin'!!! Simple, eh?

Now what do you think is going to be CTB'd? Well I'll show you. This. 

Why? Well I'm just not happy with it and if I was to be honest I've never really been happy with it. So I'm shortly going to take it off my site BUT I am going to replace it with a much better (I hope!) updated version.

With the new version I've tried and tried to get it to work in one pass but failed dismally!!! Still it'll certainly be a lot, lot better and a lot, lot squarer too, I hope.  

Just hope that BC3 will stick with it long enough to get it done!!! I'll do two versions - beaded and non beaded while I'm playing with it.

Cuff with clasps

Well in the end I decided to go with two clasps which will keep the bracelet from twisting round my wrist - well, that's if I wear it of course!!!

I did wear it for a couple of days and it really really works well. Not sure I like those clasps but as they do stay on the inside of the wrist that's fine by me. 

I'm very open to other suggestions if anybody has them. It's an ongoing problem knowing what clasps to use or make that look good and work well for an old git to put on easily. Comments on this problem will be very welcome. 

Back to playing

I'm getting there slowly with the Celtic Ferris Wheel pattern!!! I've got several things 'on the go' at the moment which are distracting me from actually finishing off this pattern. I do apologise.

I'll try and get it done over the next two days. It's the fiddling around laying it out on the page and then the various links etc that have to be done that's causing the 'problem'.

Well also that and the garden taking over a bit of my life!!!! I don't 'mind' gardening but I regard it as a chore rather than a pleasure but somebody's got to do it!!!

It's a BOY!

Bet you thought I'd given birth when you read the title of this blog post!!!!  Hardly feasible at the 'tender' age of 74½!!!  I'm back to knitting glove puppets again!!! This time it's a boy!!

Actually although I'm not that fond of knitting it's proving a good way to teach myself (and pick up speed) how to do continental knitting. 

As a crocheter this way of knitting makes a LOT more sense as the yarn is held in the left hand (like when you crochet) and is almost 'hooked' through the loops. 

I had a very dear friend called Irmgard many years ago who tried to teach me her continental way and I just didn't 'get' it but now thanks to Youtube I'm on a roll with it. I may EVEN start to like knitting in the end!!!!

Whoops!

I'd nearly forgotten to show you this!!!  I know you've seen two before but I keep going off on another tangent to play with something else that's new!!!

It's the new design I'm working on - when I remember!!! I'm a bit of a ditz when it comes to actually finishing off things and this pattern seems to be 'one of those' that I have a tendency to forget!!!! 

Maybe my next project should be to design a BC4 as I think I need more help with just getting things finished rather than flipperty jibberting from one idea to the next!!!!

Not quite finished bracelet

After you saw this post I made another 'side' to the bracelet!!! Exactly the same!!!

Now this is the reason that none of the pink rings had beads on - I knew that they would be joined to something else which is what actually happened. 

A rare day when I start off with a plan AND carry it through!!! Now I've got a cuff bracelet but next I need to tackle the fastenings. This is unusual for me. I don't like putting on fastenings afterwards but I did want a cuff that would fit EXACTLY and not keep turning itself over on the wrist.

Time for BC3 to have a good think about what he intends to do next!!!!

Another crocheted puppet

Now this time I've made another puppet but again crocheted. This one has the worry pocket on too. 

Not all little girls are blond so this one's a brunette!!!!

Revitalised

Well this was a struggle and I'll admit it. I wasn't really in the zone for this but when I'm asked to do something I will get on and do my best!!!  This is the pattern which you can find here but sadly these pictures aren't the best I've ever taken as they're so hard to get a 3D one right!!!  Best to look at the ones on the pattern site!!!

I decided that I'd start from scratch and just ignore the drawings that I'd done. Well that didn't last long as I quickly found that I had to do all the drawings again as they were 'pre Apple' drawings and done on a PC. Not a problem really as that's something I really enjoy doing.

So after deciding to ignore and not look at the diagrams I found that the text needed a bit of re-wording. Did that and then tried it out. WRONG!!! Big mistakes. So I finished the drawings, added them to the text and it all then made sense. Well, to me.

Playing with needle felting - again!

Well yes. I'm back on the needle felting again. I do know one thing - this will never be a favourite hobby but it's also quite interesting too!!!! 

While I was out and about with a friend a few weeks ago I bought a needle felting 'brush' (a cheap one). It's sort of like a scrubbing brush. Now I do find this a LOT better than the original spongy sort of pad I'd got so I will stick with this for now. 

A friend down the road accidentally washed her jumper (cashmere) on too high a heat and it shrunk a LOT. Bad news for her but good news for me!!!! She gave me the sorry garment and I've cut some of it into strips. I felted the one strip to make a bookmark and the new brush means that the fleece goes through the cashmere really, really well. So I decided to back the finished item onto fabric. 

Actually the pictures don't really do the bookmark justice - or is it that I need more practice!!! Would somebody kindly send me another 24 hours to fit into my 24 hour day, please?

Teapots finished

Remember these little teapots I showed you? 

Well they were for an exchange I did with the Fringe Element in Canada. My partner has now received hers so I'm happy to show you. 

What I haven't told you is that the person I was given to make for is a very, very special friend who has put up with me twice by allowing me to stay with her in her house. Her husband is special too - love his dry sense of humour. 

One of the remits on this exchange was to use beads. Now, I can hear you wondering where the beads are on the picture below but I can assure you they're there. Tiny gold sparkly ones. My very special favourite ones. 

I had to make the large teapot VERY carefully so that I got all the beads in the right places. Thanks to Martha Ess's wonderful instructions and diagrams in her 'Tea is for Tatting' book this wasn't hard but just required dedicated concentration - thank GOODNESS BC3 behaved well throughout!!! All the teapots are in that book.